A GOOD AGE: Older re-enactors celebrate Mass. regiment

Joseph Zellner of Bedford and Benny White of Boston, both over age 60, were the centerpiece of the excellent 90-minute program “The 54th Mass. Volunteer Infantry Regiment: They Served With Glory.” It was held at the National Archives to observe the 150th anniversary of the mustering of the regiment in March 1863, in Readville, part of Dedham at the time but now part of Boston.

I think of Civil War soldiers as young men, even boys. Most were. So I was surprised last week at a program on the 54th Massachusets Volunteer Regiment to see two re-enactors in their 60s.

Joseph Zellner of Bedford and Benny White of Boston were the centerpiece of the excellent 90-minute program, “The 54th Mass. Volunteer Infantry Regiment: They Served With Glory.” It was held at the National Archives to observe the 150th anniversary of the mustering of the regiment in March 1863, in Readville, part of Dedham at the time but now part of Boston.

Archivist Joe Keefe described how the 54th, the first military unit of black soldiers raised in the North, was created by Gov. John Andrews of Hingham. The regiment gained its greatest fame at Battery Wagner in Charleston, S.C., in July 1863, portrayed in the film ‘‘Glory.’’ Sgt. William Carney of New Bedford became first black man to earn the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor.

The gallantry and steadfastness of the men of the 54th spurred President Lincoln to recruit 180,000 black solders into the Union Army.

The 54th remains the most famous black regiment of the war, Keefe said, and in 2008, it was designated as the Massachusetts National Guard’s Honor Guard. Zellner and White have marched with the regiment in both of President Barack Obama’s inaugural parades.

Zellner, 65, is a retired history teacher at Concord-Carlisle High School. He was recently elected president of the regiment’s Company A. He is also a first-person interpreter for Solomon Pierce.

In 1999, Zellner, 51, was researching records for a soldier to portray and he came across Pierce, who was 42 when he joined in December 1863. “What is a 42-year-old doing volunteering when he had a son who was 21 and volunteered and died at Battery Wagner,” Zellner wondered.

He learned that Pierce and his younger son, 19, signed on in December 1863, leaving Pierce’s wife, who was expecting, and 9-year-old daughter at home. They both survived and Pierce returned to Monson as a farmer and liveryman. “I gained a lot of respect for him,” Zellner said.

The scope of the 54th is fascinating. Keefe and other speakers described its creation as part of a strong tradition of civil rights and equal rights activism in Boston. “We can get at the throat of treason and slavery through the state of Massachusetts,” abolitionist Frederick Douglass said.

The 54th re-enactors do include some teenagers and men in their 20s, but there is, Zellner said, “a dearth of men in the middle-age range,” who comprised the heart of the unit.

“Older people have the time to devote to it,” he said.

We are richer for it.

Reach Sue Scheible at scheible@ledger.com, 617-786-7044, or The Patriot Ledger, Box 699159, Quincy 02269-9159. Read her Good Age blog on our website. Follow her on Twitter @ sues_ledger. READ MOREGood Age columns.